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FANTASIA 2023: A Chat with Renaissance Woman and Director of PRUNING Lola Blanc
Photo by: Mikey Piliero Lola Blanc’s short film Pruning, which I caught at Fantasia, was a bleak and visceral foray into the right-wing phenomenon that left me speechless after the credits rolled. The film starred Madeline Brewer as a right-wing talking head who unintentionally inspires a mass shooting. The woman is then forced to choose either to abandon her conscience and push the rhetoric to become a star, or to call for a stop and turn against her party. Her choice and how Blanc visualized that as a director was nothing short of ghastly and unforgettable.
Afterwards I got the chance to chat with Blanc, who is not only a director, but a renaissance woman of sorts; she is also an accomplished singer, actor and podcaster.
Fun fact: Blanc was once in a cult and that is the topic of the podcast she co-hosts, Trust Me.
Read on for my chat with Lola Blanc, who gave some great insight into not only her directorial process, but her political beliefs that help to form Pruning:
Lola, I read that you’re also an accomplished musician and actor. What made you want to go behind the camera?
Lola Blanc: I kind of discovered over time as I was shooting music videos for my projects, I would just have really specific ideas for what I wanted, and sometimes directors could interpret that and sometimes they could not. It just took me a long time to really acknowledge that I could be a director, because I’ve always had really clear ideas about what I wanted to see both visually and narratively. Finally I just took the leap and I haven’t looked back. It’s my absolute favorite thing that I do at this point.
So what was sort of the genesis of Pruning and what drove you to tell the story of a far right spokeswoman who inspires a shooting and her struggle with that?
Lola Blanc: Originally, my co-writer Jeremy Radin and I had talked about doing something political together. We actually bonded on Twitter and started talking about how he (Jeremy) could have seen himself becoming an incel. And I thought that was really, really interesting because I’m really interested in incel culture and sort of far right extremism, and then that sort of fell apart.
One day I was just watching some news and hearing about some people who are quite incendiary, in my opinion, and rather dangerous. I thought it would be super interesting to explore what it would be like if you were the person who actually had inspired a mass shooting with your rhetoric. And Jeremy seemed like the perfect person to write it with because we’d had all of these conversations already.
Madeline Brewer in Pruning So given your background as somebody who was actually in a cult, I think you’re sort of the perfect person to highlight the cultishness of some of these pockets of right-wing ideology. What do you think attracts folks to this and sort of locks them into these echo chambers?
Lola Blanc: I think what attracts people to it is that the answers to everything are really clear. In a culture of fear-mongering, everything is really black and white and therefore the world is really easy to understand. You don’t have to face the chaos and face the gray areas and the terrifying realities that are the world. I think every human craves that. It’s just a matter of what we are exposed to in times of uncertainty? What are we being exposed to in times of cultural tumultuousness?
I mean it’s so different for everyone. We have had a former Q Anon believer and a former conspiracy theorist on my podcast. (https://www.trustmepod.com) It’s so random how it works for everyone. But what we typically see is that, you kind of look to these things for meaning in times when you don’t have any, or when something is just making your life feel uncertain.
So given the subject matter, I have to say, it feels like whenever a filmmaker tries to tackle mass shootings or incorporate that into their narrative, audiences and distributors get nervous. But it’s something we’re very familiar with as Americans. Why do you think we’re so averse to having this in our media and facing it as a people?
Lola Blanc: I mean, it’s just such a touchy subject. It’s instantly gonna create an argument.
Half of the country believes it’s guns and half of the country believes it’s definitely not guns, no matter what the other cause is, it’s not guns. The truth is probably a much more complicated answer than any of those things. But no matter what, it’s going to be controversial, it’s gonna be painful, it’s gonna be a scary thing to deal with and it’s a really hard thing to tackle.
That’s why in the film, I didn’t want to focus on the shooting itself, because I don’t feel like I would even do justice to a story that is focusing on the actual experience of the shooting. That’s a pain I cannot understand. But what I feel I can add to the conversation is some of the rhetoric that can contribute to ideas that then lead to shootings.
Do you think sooner or later I think we’re gonna have to face it in our media, so we can actually start to have these conversations?
Lola Blanc: Yeah. It’s just, it has to be done sensitively and everyone is afraid of going there. We absolutely should be talking about it. We should not be desensitized when we see shootings on the news. We should have media that is forcing us to face it and contend with it and feel the strong feelings that it should be making us feel because it’s horrific.
So, I love the cost that you sort of associate with this and the circumstances that you give to these people that sort of perpetuate this rhetoric and you try to dig into the psychological effects as well on this person who’s responsible for this. Do you feel like these people are ever gonna get their comeuppance?
Lola Blanc: Well, as we’re seeing, Tucker Carlson was exposed for not believing some of what he was saying on TV that he knew was whipping people up into a frenzy. We know that Alex Jones is finally seeing consequences. It seems like it’s slowly starting to happen.
I hope it continues to happen. I think if you are knowingly, purposely willingly or willfully riling people up for money with no regard to the consequences and in no regard to how it will be received at all, you absolutely should face some consequence for that and hopefully it will continue to happen.
What’s next for you?
Lola Blanc: I really wanna do a feature. I have another short coming up that’s actually part music video, for my next release as an artist. That will be my fourth short film, and I would really, really like to move on to features at this point. I definitely wanna stay in the psychological thriller space. I feel like that is where my heart is and I hope to dive into more dark character studies because it’s what I really what I wanna do at this time.
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NYAFF 2023: MARRY MY DEAD BODY
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival takes place between July 14 and July 30. For more information, click here.
Taiwan is largely considered one of the more progressive parts of Asia, and yet it’s only in the past four years that gay marriage has been officially sanctioned. So in a sense, it’s easy to take for granted the progress we’ve seen in the states, especially at a time when certain sectors seem dead set on rolling those hard-won freedoms back.
But in another sense, it’s a bit besides the point to focus on the real world/political aspects of the film, which seems far less invested in making a political statement than using gay themes as a backdrop for a wild eyed, helter skelter genre collison.
And you know what, fair enough; in the world of cinema, that certainly counts as a form of progress.
But for me personally, therein lies the curious conundrum that Marry My Dead Body represents: a movie that would have been progressive in America had it come out in, say 1990 but in 2023 it feels almost… quaint.
It would be incorrect to say that the film is a mess, but there are a fair amount of tonal shifts and narrative curlicues that give what in some senses is a fairly formulaic film a unique and interesting texture, while also serving to hamper the overall experience.
Heartthrob Hsu Kuang Han is our hero Lin Tzu-Ching, a standard issue cop who doesn’t play by the rules. The film begins with a gym-based cruise that is quickly revealed as part of a sting operation, and one almost wishes there was more of this vibe; the scene that briefly bristles with a seductive homoerotic tension that felt unique and strangely dangerous.
Tzu-Ching gets his man (so to speak), but his rough handling and less-than-tolerant taunting of the suspect result in a demotion and a transfer to a smaller precinct, far away from the action and the accolades he so desperately craves.
As an American, it’s strange to think how unremarkable a character like Wu Ming Wan would have been had this been a movie from my youth. And more to the point, the character arc he undergoes would never have come to pass, because it never would have occurred to anyone that he needed to change in the first place.
It’s probably not worth the effort to detail the convoluted chain of events that leads to Lin marrying an openly gay ghost (Austin Lin’s Mao-Mao), or how that ties in to Lin’s attempts to take down big time gangster Lin Hsaio-Yuan (Tsai Chen Nan), but suffice it to say the wunza formula, as codified by Roger Ebert, is alive and well:
Wunza cop, wunza gay ghost; together, they’re trouble for the bad guys!
Even if it doesn’t cohere as well as one might like, it’s undeniable that this pell-mell approach to genre trappings generally proves to be an advantage: anybody who has seen more than ten movies in their life should have a pretty good idea of all the beats this movie is going to hit. But the restless jumping between supernatural farce, buddy cop flick, family drama and YouTube video about a cute doggy means that those beats don’t necessarily come when or where you’re expecting, and don’t necessarily play out in quite the way audiences have been conditioned to expect.
Providing a necessary anchor is the genuine chemistry between Lin and Kuang Han. Once the initial tension dissolves and they reluctantly come to appreciate and rely on one another, the duo play off of each other with a sort of goofball glee. More to the point, Kuang Han is at his best in the moments where he’s allowed to go all in on the goofiness. His take on the ‘cop who doesn’t play by the rules’ is… fine. It’s perfectly acceptable, but by necessity Lin Tzu-Chang isn’t particularly likable to start with, and Kuang Han does little to differentiate him from the scores of cops with attitude that came before.
Though admittedly, it feels highly unlikely that any of them had quite as much skill at pole dancing as Kuang Han displays at one point. But perhaps I digress…
Another curious and somewhat puzzling aspect to all this is that we never really get an idea of what made Wu Ming quite so virulently homophobic. When almost everyone else in the film chastises him for his retrograde attitudes (implying that society as a whole has largely moved past such discrimination; “Don’t be a prude like us old people”, one of them even chastises), it becomes even more difficult to understand just why he’s carrying such a virulent stance. And the presumably unintentional end result of the singular focus is that it seems less like Wu Ming has learned a lesson about tolerance than him learning to be much nicer to one particular gay person.
To that point… there’s no question Austin Lin has the showier role, and he plays it to the hilt. Never falling back on stereotypes (unless his character is weaponizing them to wreak havoc on his huffy hubby), Lin laces his considerable comic chops with pangs of loneliness and anger that become more prominent as more of his past is revealed.
While Lin and Juang Han are most of the show here, they are supported by a cast that, while not given all that much to do, make the most out of the moments to shine that they’re given.
Gingle Wong makes a fairly good impression as a fellow cop who Ming-Han is infatuated with, and both her performance and the film itself are canny in the way they play with genre expectations. The same goes for Ma Nien Hsien as the police captain, who is afforded some goofy notes that captain types are rarely allowed to hit.
If there’s a weak link, it’s Flower Chen as Tzu-Ching’s pre-demotion partner Chubby, whose two character traits are fat and gay, and mostly disappears from the narrative before he has the chance to develop anything like a second dimension. Though the film is commendable in its intentions and there is really no point where “gay” is the punchline and Tzu-Ching and hos regressive attitudes remain the constant and consistent butt of the joke, Chen’s scenes come within spitting distance of the sort of thing this film is supposed to be a riposte to.
And there must be special mention made of Chang Zhang Xing as A-Goa, a henchman who figures into the highlight of the film, a high octane, wildly kinetic vehicular pursuit that ranks among the best car chases in recent memory.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the action portion of the genre mishmash, that’s pretty much as good as it gets; with the aid of a highly conspicuous drone camera, director Cheng Wei-Hua orchestrates that initial chase with style and verve, but the rest of the film never matches that energy; in fact, aside from a brief shootout at the end, there’s really very little action at all; a weird choice. Considering just how hard they go in on the cop drama of it all.
And yet, there’s one last baffling swerve in store, as even after the cop plot has come to a somewhat unexpected, potentially unsatisfying conclusion, there’s still another fifteen minutes of film left, as Mao-Mao must have attain closure from his seemingly homophobic father (Tou Chung Hun, very good in an awkwardly written part).
This is the exact point at which the film has officially overstayed its welcome, and while the film never soft-sells the melodrama, trying to full-on jerk tears at the last moment feels like a stunning misread of the audiences connection to that aspect of the story.
And in that, it occurs to me that there are some distinct similarities between this movie and classic Hong Kong films such as Mr. Vampire or Magic Cop. Heedlessly jumping between genres and tones with, frankly, none of the control that Wei-Hua shows with this material. But for all the ways that this improves on that sort of thing from a technical/coherence standpoint, never in a million years would Wong Jing try to convince you there was anything like emotional depth. Say what you will about his output, but at least he had a read on how to send audiences out the door.
Still, I’m reluctant to come down too hard on Marry My Dead Body. For all its flaws, it was still a generally entertaining ride. And the positive moments are going to linger with me far longer than the ones that didn’t work.
Also: not for nothing, but as a man who can appreciate a fine butt regardless of gender, Hsu Kuang Hans’ is nothing to sneeze at.
To be clear, it’s not a reason to see the movie per se; it has enough qualities to justify that all its own. Think of it more like a shapely little bonus.
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NYAFF 2023: OKIKU AND THE WORLD
The 22nd Annual New York Asian Film Festival takes place from July 14 to July 30. For more information, click here.
I suppose that when you get right down to it, the most remarkable thing about Okiku And The World is that it’s a 90-minute movie almost entirely about shit, and that it’s not a metaphor.
I mean, certainly, you could read it that way; certainly, some of the characters do. But in the approach of filmmaker Sakamoto Junji, the shit is anything but a metaphor. It’s an inevitable, concrete, inarguable fact of life, a thing that exists whether we want to think about it or not. And has to be dealt with.
Also… there are samurai.
If I was twelve, there’s a decent chance this would have been my most anticipated film of the year.
(In reality it was Cool World. But there’s really no need to get into any of that right now)
But 12-year old me most likely would have been disappointed in the actual watching of it, and exactly for the reasons addressed above: while the premise is an off-color one, there’s very little in the film itself that ought to be considered transgressive in terms of actual content. The actual body of the film is less concerned with grossing you out, and more concerned with the characters lives, and struggles, and the halting love story that acts as the lynchpin of a movie that only pretends to be more interested in the bowels than the heart.
It’s a leisurely stroll through life and romance, and the droppings are the backdrop.
The film takes place over the course of seven chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue, and after the opening crawl that describes a political situation that boils down to ‘things are kinda shitty’, we open with that rarest of cinematic events: a three-way meet cute.
In an era where plumbing isn’t even a pipe dream, it is the job of Yasuke (Ikematsu Sosuke) to go from town to town collecting the shit from everyone’s outhouse, and reselling it in turn to farmers as crop fertilizer. It is on his travels that he meets Chuji (Kanichiro), an illiterate paper collector with whom he takes refuge under the roof in a massive rainstorm.
The titular Okiku (Kuroki Haru), despite her top billing, shows up to the party last, trying very hard to pretend she doesn’t need to… powder her nose.
The stuff of which true friendships are born.
It isn’t long before Chuji ditches his old gig in favor of becoming Yasuke’s apprentice, and the object of Okiku’s affections. Okiku, the stubborn, somewhat prideful daughter of former samurai Genbei (Sato Koichi), has yet to adjust to her loss of position.
Her world is upended when her father is paid a visit from some members of the clan that he had gotten in trouble for bad mouthing in the first place. Resigned to his fate, the old man goes directly from the toilet to the chopping block.
I will not lie; this is a point at which I got rather excited. The previous twenty minutes or so had been suffused with a level of casual scatology that managed to feel matter-of-course when it could have felt gleefully prurient.
Granted, the prurience would have felt nice. But it also, I suspect, would have gotten old rather fast.
So the approach to the subject matter had already won me over and endeared the film to me. Indeed, the only thing that could improve the situation is if they were to throw a swordfight.
So when Okiku hears what happened, silently opens a drawer, and pulls out a small blade, I was all hyped for shit to go down.
Shit, so to speak, does not go down.
Instead, we cut to a bloody aftermath: her father dead, her throat slashed, and all hope of badassery cut off at the knees.
When the next chapter opens, a season has passed, and Okiku is living in the aftermath of her tragic loss. But, interestingly, with the conflict deflated, the film never raises the issue of story again. It instead becomes what writer-director Sakamoto Junji clearly intended it to be from the start: a meditation piece.
For life continues apace, in spite of everything. And eventually, everybody falls into their new rhythms. Chuji learns the ropes of shit collection, Yusuke’s good humor starts to curdle as he becomes bitter over his lack of upward mobility and deference to his economic superiors; and a traumatized Okiku, no longer able to speak, slowly begins to emerge from her seclusion.
There’s something of genuine beauty in the whole of Okiku And The World. It’s as if Junji decided to take on the challenge of basing a movie around feces and still making it gorgeous, and against all odds, that’s just what he did. The black and white (with occasional flashes of color) cinematography is glorious (not to mention clever thinking when it comes to the actual images of crap; that would be wayyyy too much brown and far too real if they had gone with color) and the editing has a zen-like rhythm that makes the inevitable passing of time seem almost soothing.
But more to the point: it’s just plain pleasurable to spend time in the company of our main trio. Kanichiro and Sosuke make for an endearing comedy duo, with Chuji’s innocence and unfailing decency playing off of Yusuke’s rueful frippery perfectly. And while Okiku starts out intentionally a bit bratty, Haru never overplays her hand, and the scatological nature of her surroundings puncture her
All of which, of course, is mere prelude to her ultimate transformation in the second half, a humbled, entirely silent performance that’s equal parts reserved and moving. If the romance is somewhat less enthralling than just watching everybody go about their paces, it still succeeds in the sense we want Chuji and Okiku to get together, if for no other reason than they’re kind of sweet together and could both use a win.
A special shout out feels in order for Sato Koichi, in his brief role of Okiku’s father. It’s obvious why he can’t stick around for the entire film, but he makes the most of the limited time he has onscreen and runs away with every last moment he’s given; it’s hard to imagine anyone walking away with their dignity after being asked to say some of the lines he’s given here, but he does it every single time.
Just the way he muses that maybe someday he’ll fart and shit at the same time makes you realize our criteria for awarding performances is seriously misguided.
If you were to read a one line description of Okiku And The World, it would probably form a very specific picture in your head. That the movie refuses to be that will probably be disappointing to people who are like 12-year old me. But if I’m being honest, 12-year old me was an idiot, and his disapproval is kind of all the recommendation you need.
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NYAFF 2023: BEAR MAN
The 22nd Annual New York Asian Film Festival takes place between July 14 and July 30. For more information, click here.
If one were to judge simply from the title, it doesn’t seem too improbable that people would assume Bear Man was a super hero movie, or at the very least a super hero movie parody. And though there aren’t necessarily the familiar trappings such as glossy costumes or big budget special effects… sure, you could make a plausible argument. What most likely wouldn’t immediately come to mind is any kind of cop thriller. And yet… it kind of is. But at the same time… no it’s not, not really.
Bear Man is and isn’t a lot of things, but if it has to be just one thing above all else, let’s go with…entertaining.
Fascinatingly, the nonsense seeming premise of Bear Man has its roots in actual Korean myth: the legend of Ungnyeo, a bear who became a human woman after praying to the gods and eating a lot of garlic and mugwort. It’s all laid out in a stylish little animated intro that signifies the films’ charm offensive right out the gate.
In this modern burlesque, however, it becomes the story of a pair of bears who escape from captivity in 1997, stumble upon enough garlic and mugwort to make the transformation into men (both played by Park Sung-woong in a dual role), and are then separated and raised by very different parental figures.
Woongnom is brought up by his eccentric yet loving scientist dad, Na Bockcheon (Dal-su Oh), to become an affable sweetheart with a bottomless hunger and abilities far beyond those of normal humans.
Woongbok, in the other hand, is found in the wild by business mogul Lee Jeongsik (Min-su Choi) during a hunting trip. Jeongsik is the CEO of a corporation called Big History, which happens to be a front for drug smuggling and (go figure) black market biological weapon sales.
And has exactly the sort of parental disposition one might expect from the sort of malcontent who makes his entrance by grilling and eating a rare steak while talking to a crony, which as we all know is classic bad guy behavior.
To that end, Woongbok is essentially thrown into a pit of brutal thugs and forced to fight his way out, day after day, until through years of pain and suffering, he finally emerges having been forged into Daddy’s Perfect Little Weapon. He is gifted a wooden knife (and also a legacy of soul deadening trauma), and takes the new Lee Jeong-hak name his place at his fathers’ side as the heir apparent to a criminal empire that the law will stop at nothing to take down.
With that sort of backdrop, it’s obviously only a matter of time before the two bear men are reunited. But the path to that reunion is… deliriously, delightfully odd..
But then… you’d have to work hard to come up with a premise like ‘bears turn into identical twins on opposite sides of the law and then proceed to make something… normal out of it. It’d be an impressive feat and a truly disappointing one, both at the same time.
While the brevity (the film clocks in at a little over 90 minutes) and a surfeit of gonzo energy, the film never flags, but in some ways its at its most charming in the opening act, where we acclimate ourselves to Woongnom’s world. Somewhat at loose ends after getting fired (and somehow his job history is even more convoluted than his backstory), he wiles away the days using his enhanced senses to sniff out troublemakers at the convenience store where his best friend Malbong (Yi-Keong Lee), an aspiring vlogger, works the counter.
Misadventures with Malbong lead to an arrest, which in turn leads to Yoon Je Moon’s Chief of Police noticing the resemblance to Lee Jeong;hak, which leads… more or less to where you’d expect and/or hope.
It has to be said that it’s a decidedly curious version of the ol’ double up; the secondary role of Jhonghok doesn’t give Sung-woong much more to do other than look impassive and bust out a flurry of brutal beatdowns, slicing up all comers with that trusty wooden knife. It’s not quite Nicolas Cage in Adaptation we’re talking about here, but he more than gets the job done, looks good doing it, and most importantly, is never less than a joy to watch.
So, yeah… in theory you’d think this would be your basic undercover/mistaken identity caper… with an ursine twist. But in practice, that aspect of the plot mostly takes a backseat until pretty much the very end; director Park Sung Kwang and the cast are far more interested in goofing around and scribbling in the margins, and that’s really what elevates the film from a good idea well-executed to a cult classic just waiting to happen.
There are so many fun runners, weird digressions, and tossed off visual gags that the actual plot almost starts to feel like an intrusion; Choi really chews the scenery like it was one of his steaks as Jeong-sik, but he’s not really in this all that much. And the stuff with his plot to smuggle a super virus is such nonsense that it starts to feel like yet another gag. But I get the choice: why waste time trying to pretend there are high stakes when it’s way more fun to have a detective side character be forced to constantly be squatting as punishment by his superior, or just randomly have a character who showed up for ten seconds at the beginning of the movie show up during the exciting finale to try and take over Malbongs’ livestream?
…Oooh, I should be more careful; Bear Man really is one of those movies where just describing it to people is nearly as much fun as watching it. Granted, it’s not perfect; the two female roles are well-assayed by Baek Ju Hye and Han Da Sol but given very little to do, comparatively speaking. Still, even that feels like a minor flaw in light of how much sheer entertainment the movie is able to squeeze into a mere 90 minutes. It’s more fun than a pack of CGI warthogs.
Which is also a thing that is in the movie.
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FANTASIA 2023: RESTORE POINT is a Rousing Dose of High Concept Czech Sci-Fi
Restore Point is a rousing dose of high concept Czech sci-fi, that screened and Fantasia and is the directorial debut by Robert Hloz. The film borrows liberally from Mamoru Oshii’s anime classic Ghost in the Shell and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to tell the story of Em (Andrea Mohylová), a female detective trying to solve two murders in a futuristic metropolis in 2041. The hook here is due to the rise of violent crime, anyone who dies of unnatural causes can be “restored”, or brought back to life for up to 48 hours after their death. The only quirks of the process is not only the time limit of 48 hours, but the fact that during life a person is then forced to back up constantly to take advantage of this government service. This basically forces folks to spend every waking moment pondering their mortality, and preparing for their death, rather than simply living their lives.
This is where the terrorist organization “The River of Life” comes in. They are quick to point out the weight this “unnatural” technology inflicts on the psyche of the population and highlight it by committing “absolute murders” to terrorize the populace. This is where the victims are always found past their 48 hours, or their backups have been erased/destroyed to ensure their inability to restore. When the absolute murders Em is charged with investigating turn out to be the pioneer of the restore technology – David Kurlstat (Matěj Hádek) and his wife, things get a bit intriguing, especially given the government funded company is looking to privatize its tech. It’s then up to Em, to navigate this future noir, to find the who and the why behind these murders as well as give us a glimpse of what put her on this path.
Envisioning the future is no easy task, but Restore’s take feels both organic and believable. It feels just lived in enough while not going too far, which definitely helps us to actually believe this technology exists. Andrea Mohylová as Em is a powerful and charismatic lead, who manages to remain both empowered and independent throughout the film. It’s something that’s never second guessed by anyone she encounters either, as she traverses this world – especially when going on the run. The narrative here is solid, and has some interesting ideas about the science and the morality of not only the restore service, but the murder that transpires in the film – once all the cards are on the table. It’s something I wasn’t quite expecting, but leads to some fun post-film conversations and reflections.
While no doubt derivative, it does so in the best possible way, in that it still feels like it has its own angle – while still “borrowing” from other films in the genre. The film’s imaginative production design and cast are what really elevates the material from being simply a knock off when it retreads some familiar territory that better films have previously traversed. That said, while the film doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it does however put its own interesting spin on it and that definitely warrants a watch alone. Restore Point is a slick sci-fi thriller that looks like it would feel right at home in an American multiplex. It’s a strikingly cerebral future noir that has its own unique hook which zeroes in on what makes living in the moment, without fear the only way to live.
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Criterion Review: Terry Gilliam’s TIME BANDITS [4K-UHD]
![Criterion Review: Terry Gilliam’s TIME BANDITS [4K-UHD]](https://i0.wp.com/cinapse.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/image-12.png?resize=1140%2C641&ssl=1)
A whimsical and wonderful adventure through space and time
Criterion continue their 4K treatment of Terry Gilliam’s oeuvre with The Fisher King and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (bring on Brazil please) with one of his most cherished features, Time Bandits. Another fantastical adventure that traverses time and space, but begins in a young boys bedroom. Kevin (a wide eyed and eager performance from Craig Warnock) is a precocious child, who prefers to escape to the solitude of his room and invention of his imagination, rather than spend time in the drudgery of his detached family and the rote world outside.
One night, a man mounted on a horse charges out of through the wardrobe in his room, and as quickly as it appeared, vanishes. The following night six dwarfs burst into his room. In their possession is a mysterious scroll. A map to portals in the universe that they stole from their boss, the Supreme Being. Kevin gets swept up in their escape and soon finds himself caught up in their hi-jinks as they hop through different eras, meeting famed characters such as Robin Hood (John Cleese), King Agamemnon (Sean Connery), and Napoleon (Ian Holm), all while looking to evade capture and line their pockets. But, danger lurks on the horizon as Evil learns of the map being in their possession, and sets out to take it for himself.
Gilliam’s films are always a blend of light and dark, humor and tragedy, but Time Bandits stands out as a film that feels like it was more squarely aimed at kids. In no way does it feel compromised in this regard. The film does not pander or condescend, or fail to deliver moments to make you think or react. Rather, the darkness is tempered, the weirdness feels more playful, and danger is replaced by a more earnest sense of discovery. Part of this comes from a focus on a young protagonist as well as this rambunctious crew of titular time bandits, brought to life though endearing performances from David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Malcom Dixon, Mike Edmonds, Jack Purvis, and Tiny Ross. Gilliam regulars such as Michael Palin (also serving as co-writer) and John Cleese add a healthy dose of British charm and quirkiness. Gravitas comes in the form of Sean Connery, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, Peter Vaughn, and a devilish turn from David Warner as Evil himself. Historical legends, characters toying with stereotypes (most notably Palin pairing with a wonderful Shelley Duval as a sexually repressed English couple), fabelistic figures, all offering opportunities for these bandits to get into trouble, or out of it. The adventure is tangible thanks to superb production design, realizing period eras, and also Gothic-tilted fantasy scenes, steampunk inspired props, practical effects, miniature design, and brilliant costume design. Time Bandits is a feast for the eyes, illuminated by the sterling work of cinematographer Peter Biziou. Gilliam’s direction showcases all the detail and depth of this work with aplomb, balancing epic fantasy with the experience and perspective of this young boy swept up in it all. From meeting heroes and villains, to thrilling action, and the surprisingly emotional weight and moral musings of the climax, Time Bandits is a whimsical and wonderful adventure through space and time.
The Package
Criterion offer up an all new new 4K restoration, one overseen by director Terry Gilliam. The transfer is pristine, showcasing a superb range and representation of colors, deep blacks, and crisp whites. Contrast, and the ensuing detail and density of image, is a standout. A consistently high quality transfer. The 4K version is also accompanied by a Blu-ray version of the same transfer on a disc that also contains associated extra features:
- Audio commentary featuring Gilliam, cowriter-actor Michael Palin, and actors John Cleese, David Warner, and Craig Warnock: Gilliam drives the commentary and offers plenty of info as to his thoughts and process in making the film, as well as the on set experience. The cuts to the other talent isn’t too smooth, but they offer an array of alternate perspectives and experiences, making for an overall compelling commentary
- Program on the creation of the film’s various historical periods and fantasy worlds, narrated by film writer David Morgan and featuring production designer Milly Burns and costume designer James Acheson: Building the worlds and looks of Time Bandits is a notable effort in itself, and this is a welcome featurette that devotes some time to the people behind these accomplishments, ranging from concept drawings, concept design, model making, and more
- Conversation between Gilliam and film scholar Peter von Bagh, recorded at the 1998 Midnight Sun Film Festival: The standout amongst the extras. Running around 80 minutes, this is a superb exchange that delves into the career and psyche of Gilliam, including his personal life, professional aspirations, influences on his filmmaking style, politics, conflicts with the industry and himself too
- Appearance by actor Shelley Duvall on Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow show from 1981: The actress largely talks about the film at hand, but she does open up the conversation to some of her earlier roles too, as well as spending some time championing the production talent on Time Bandits
- Gallery of rare photographs from the set:
- Trailer:
- PLUS: An essay by critic David Sterritt: Included in the liner booklet, which also details the restoration/transfer of this 4K version of the film
The Bottom Line
Time Bandits is a wonderful marriage of adventure and Gilliam’s trademark quirks and whimsy. A brilliant ensemble, superb production values, and a memorable tale, combine to magical effect. Criterion’s release offers up a pristine 4K transfer, and nice selection of extra features, that help celebrate one of Gilliam’s most enjoyable features.
Time Bandits 4K-UHD is available via Criterion now
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FANTASIA 2023: VINCENT MUST DIE is a Captivating Genre Bending Debut
Vincent Must Die, is the satirical French genre bender of a feature debut by Stéphan Castang which just screened at Fantasia and it’s a unique and morosely hilarious metaphor for the COVID epidemic. The film follows Vincent (Karim Leklou) a hapless graphic designer, who one day out of the blue is attacked by an intern at his job. A few days later it’s a colleague stabbing him with a pencil. The random attacks continue to escalate, until he retreats to his father’s villa in the country. At a gas station on his way he meets a man who he believes is homeless, but is stricken with the same plight. Here the film forks as one thread follows Vincent’s condition and how it’s not some isolated occurrence, and the other narrative follows Vincent’s romance with a local rural waitress at an American themed eatery, Margaux (Vimala Pons) – who didn’t immediately try to kill him, which is the beginning of most successful relationships.
Vincent Must Die uses the bizarre attacks that plague our protagonist to deconstruct and put a spotlight on the human condition and how it devolved during the pandemic. It’s something that is just beginning to bubble up as Vincent moves out of the city, where he struggles – like a lot of us did during the pandemic to figure out just what is going on. This thematic thread thoughtfully explores Vincent’s loneliness and that’s been caused due to his inability to leave his home or even make eye contact with another human out of fear of being attacked. The film then changes gears a bit in the third act, once Vincent’s condition begins to subside as it then spreads causing widespread chaos. As the worst case scenario envelopes the world around them, Vincent and Margaux then simply try to find the best in one another.
While the script lays out the general framework, it’s the performances here that really makes this narrative as engaging as it is allowing you to really connect to these characters. Karim Leklou does a rather impressive job at sort of juggling the more nuanced real life reaction a person would have if this really transpired, while still giving it that comedic flair you need to offset the rather graphic violence. It’s a performance filled with vulnerability, sadness, rage and ultimately love, that was impressive and couldn’t have been easy. His chemistry with Vimala Pons is palpable and the bittersweet nature of their relationship thankfully imbues this film with a heart, that is oddly more relatable than most.
Vincent Must Die is a sublime foray into several genres, that meticulously balances its more broad comedic strokes with its brooding and bittersweet love story at its core. The film thankfully strays away from the absurd, to tell a very human story of the lengths some will go to maintain a connection, even as the world burns around them. While the premise is enough to get you in the door, the romance locks you in thanks to the leads, who really tap into the sincerity of the characters given their situation. Hopefully a sign of things to come from director Stéphan Castang, Vincent Must Die is a superb debut that manages to take this still relevant metaphor and situation and infuse it with a very human story of connection, rather than getting lost in the whole post-apocalyptic of it all.
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See it in 70mm!
Oppenheimer Offers a Rare Chance to Watch a Film… on Film.
Universal Pictures Throughout his career, director Christopher Nolan has generally traversed worlds of science fiction along with serving up a trilogy of Batman films, though not without his detours. With Oppenheimer, Nolan returns to less-traveled ground with a nonfiction-based narrative.
Once again, the setting is WWII. In Dunkirk, he crafted a boots-on-the-ground narrative of soldiers fighting one of the war’s most famous battles. With Oppenheimer, the struggle is not on the battlefield, but in the halls of science, telling the story of one of the 20th Century’s most controversial figures: J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), director of the Manhattan Project and “father of the atomic bomb”.
Far from a simple defense (or, for that matter, a repudiation) of the man, the film seems to genuinely try to stand back and take an observational approach, sharing the story of a deeply flawed man who does what many of us would: answers his country’s call to help end a horrible war.
Universal Pictures What’s most fascinating to me is that the film doesn’t limit itself to what might seem the “‘obvious” story of the race to develop atomic weaponry (though that is a big part). It’s the aftermath – the weight of guilt, voice of conscience, and even the interrogation that serves as the wraparound – where the story strikes its most intriguing and human chord, as Oppenheimer shifts from a creator of atomic weaponry to a vocal critic.
As usual for Nolan’s films, the narrative is smart and engaging, the scope grand, and the cinematography luxuriant. Shot on large-format 70mm IMAX and 65mm Panavision film, it’s another testament to Nolan’s love for film – actual film – as a medium. It’s a love that I share.
Unfortunately, thanks to the stranglehold of digital projection, in most places it’s virtually impossible to watch movies on film these days unless you’re blessed to live near one of a handful of specialty theaters – The New Beverly in L.A., Pennsylvania’s Mahoning Drive-In, or an Alamo Drafthouse are among the few places left to experience the joy of seeing a movie projected on film.
It’s only with the arrival of a new film by the medium’s biggest proponent directors – Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino (owner of the aforementioned New Bev) – that the average American can watch a film projected – particularly a brand new one.
When my screener started, I was delighted to see that it was projected on film (I didn’t know this in advance), but the audience quickly realized something was up: it was without sound. This continued on for some minutes, and when the sound was restored the film was not restarted despite an employee announcing to us that it would. The projection was also not properly masked, with the top of the screen bleeding over into a visible black bar rather than terminating in a crisp edge.
I can’t deny it was somewhat frustrating.
Universal Pictures And yet, despite these problems, I loved having the increasingly rare experience of seeing an actual film print screened. The characteristic rich appearance of the film was a delight, reminding me it had been too long since the last (in my case, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
Unfortunately a substandard projection won’t be (and hasn’t been) a unique experience – it’s practically a dead art thanks to not only digital technology but general corner-cutting in presentation. Hopefully these initial pains will subside after projectionists work out the kinks and get the rhythm of what to do. But hearing of projection issues like the ones I experienced might have viewers wondering if they’re better off just watching the film digitally.
And to you, I entreat: watch it on any film format if you can. Not only for the experience, but to show that yes, there is still an interest. We want to see films on film.
Preferably with quality projection.
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NYAFF 2023: GLORIOUS ASHES
The 22nd annual New York Asian Film Festival takes place between July 14 and July 30. For more information, click here.
It is a relatively simple task to describe many, if not all, of the things that happen over the course of the two-hour runtime of Bui Thac Chuyen’s Glorious Ashes. But the whys prove to be slightly more elusive… possibly by design, possibly by ignorance. Still, it’s a potent piece of cinema that accomplishes what it sets out to do…mostly.
The film opens at the wedding of Nhan (Phu’O’ng Ahn Dao) and Tam (Ngo Quang Tuan), a pair of gleeful young newlyweds, overjoyed at the prospect of starting their new lives together. Significantly less pleased is Duong (Le Cong Hoang), a sulky guest who gulps down shot after shot, barely seeming to acknowledge the relentless chattering of his ostensible date, Hau (Bao Ngoc Doling), who even in recounting to him the moment she fell for him, manages to slip in a couple of digs about his itinerant nature.
Somehow, against all odds, this leads to a drunken tryst on a boat that qualifies as one of the most pitiful sex scenes in the history of cinema, a soul deadening spectacle that starts with Hau removing Duong’s headlamp, blinding her as he pumps away, and ends with her hilariously rolling out of the boat and disappearing under the water after Duong calls out Nhan’s name and starts crying as he climaxes.
And, to be clear: these two events take place roughly twenty seconds apart.
As we all know, sex that terrible can only have one result, and nine months later, a daughter is brought into the world. Duong and Hau, who have since gotten married, delve into parenthood without having resolved any of the issues underlying their cursed union. Duong deals with things by constantly retreating to his hideaway on the sea, while Hau becomes increasingly obsessed with Nhan and her happy marriage. But if her jealousy proves unhealthy, then she shouldn’t worry; eventually, fate conspires to give everyone absolutely terrible coping mechanisms.
From its very opening moments, writer-director Bui Thac Chuyen signals the curiously opaque nature his film is going to take; it is not a work that is overly at pains to meet you halfway. The dialogue, when it occurs, trends towards the unilluminating, even when they’re saying things that should feel illuminating. The opening wedding is a perfect example: when we watch Hau and Duong, the dialogue and the body language are both saying different things. And then their faces are saying something else on top of that… which itself changes from moment to moment, making it tricky, if not impossible, to find one’s emotional footing.
We might think we can tell what they’re thinking. But we can never be sure. And lingering in that liminal sense of unknowingness casts a spell that’s difficult to articulate, but equally difficult to deny, if you’re willing to give yourself over to it.
The Not-Quite-Quadrangle of Nhan and Tam and Duong and Hau is Not Quite Contrasted with the… complicated story of Khang and Loan.
Khang (Thach Kim Long) has just returned to Thom Rom after serving time for the attempted rape of Loan, an act which the villagers believe caused Loan (Ngo Pham Hanh Thuy) to have a mental breakdown… though her response when she overhears some of her fellow villagers discussing the situation, while it reads one way in the moment, becomes far more ambiguous upon later developments.
Unable to face the villagers (or Loan specifically), Khang hides out with The Monk (Mai The Hiep), an old friend who is, in fact, an actual monk. It remains unclear exactly why Khang has returned to a place where it will be impossible to put his past behind him. At one point he claims to want to be a monk, but only in the context of him talking about how he is failing to live up to the standards expected of him. And things become no more clear for him or us when Loan starts showing up on the Monk’s front door, in search of…well, it’s not even clear that she knows.
It’s not entirely surprising to learn that the basis for Glorious Ashes comes from two short stories Tro Tan Ruc Ro and Cui Muc Troi Ve (both by Nguyen Ngoc Tu), because if nothing else, the film certainly has the texture of two short stories: aside from taking place in the same village, they don’t connect in any meaningful way. The Nhan stuff is domestic melodrama that takes a turn for the tragic, and then the somewhat inexplicable. Ultimately it’s about people who can’t let go of the past, and fail to find non-destructive ways to come to terms with their present. While the way the Loan subplot resolves itself, or fails to resolve itself, almost makes it feel like something akin to a shaggy dog joke, or (to be more charitable) a koan in cinematic form. Which is not what one might expect from the weighty themes on display.
But instead of making the movie feel disjointed, it somehow just adds to the mystique of it all, providing a lighter contrast to the somehow simultaneously feverish and matter-of-fact chain of events in the main story.
I won’t pretend that watching Glorious Ashes was an easy experience; as many moments as I found mesmerizing or compelling, there were an equal amount that were just confounding or obtuse to no benefit. And, as always in these situations, I have to be open to the possibility that there’s a cultural disconnect, and I’m projecting a sense of cryptic-ness that simply wouldn’t be there if I were more informed on the comings and goings of Vietnamese society. But overall, I cannot deny the spell that watching it cast over me. For every moment I mentioned here, there are ten more I wish I had the time, space, and presence of mind to try and unpack.
The filmmakers have taken what should be a simple story, and complicated it not by adding more story, but by really and truly playing into the idea that the human psyche is a complex, inexplicable mechanism that not even the owners have a grasp of. It’s a high risk, high reward strategy. And for me at least, it was rewarding.
…Mostly.
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OPPENHEIMER is Christopher Nolan at His Most Haunted Best
Pictures Courtesy of Universal Pictures How do you make a film where the result is ultimately known before the audience even steps into the theater? This was classically the dilemma for many directors and writers who attempt to tackle world events, especially historically mammoth ones that the end result is a foregone conclusion. James Cameron tackling the Titanic sinking comes to mind. Of course Cameron’s approach was to wrap a fictional narrative around the historical event, giving you a manufactured viewpoint through which to see the inevitable horror as it looms large.
In his latest, and best, film, Christopher Nolan tackles a somehow even larger historical event: the creation of the atomic bomb, under the leadership of enigmatic theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. From the first frame, you know where this story heads, and the heavy shadow it casts over the history of warfare ever since. Or at least you think you know how the story goes.
But Nolan’s magic trick, as is often the case, is not in the story he is telling, but more precisely how he chooses to tell it. Yes, the audience is never curious if Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer and the other fast-talking physicists behind the Manhattan Project will succeed in their task. Of course they will. But by bending time over on itself, not dissimilar to how he did in Memento, Nolan masterfully reframes the life of Oppenheimer, presenting his life previous to the bomb, and his tortured, guilt-laden life afterwards. By injecting his puzzle-box logic, best demonstrated by films like Memento and The Prestige, Nolan is able to get past the pure facts of Oppenheimer’s life to avoid the danger of creating a dry, if compelling, portrait of an individual, playing less like book report or documentary but as a psychological study of what it must feel like to doom humanity to an endless nuclear nightmare.
Which is not to suggest that Nolan’s portrait of “Oppie” is especially flattering. He is regularly displayed as an absent father, philanderer, conceited and difficult to get along with. He sympathizes with leftist politics, but also pragmatically is never a joiner, seeing any ideology as too incomplete to earn his full support. Time and again it is highlighted how Oppenheimer is more interested in theory than reality, conceiving the atomic bomb as a necessary evil to beat the Nazis to it, but also unable to accept his own culpability in creating a weapon of war. It’s not a bomb, after all; it’s a gadget.
The other pole of the film is Lewis Strauss, a connected businessman, Navy admiral and advocate for increased nuclear weaponry, played in a career-highlight performance by Robert Downey Jr. Strauss’ part of the story is told throughout, in black-and-white segments where he is facing a confirmation hearing to be placed on Eisenhower’s cabinet. But previous encounters with a post-bomb Oppenheimer, increasingly a critic of further nuclear proliferation, threaten to rattle his confirmation. And there is another mysterious interview that an elder Oppenheimer is subjected to, the full reality of which is not revealed until the film’s final act, but also is a matter of known historical record. This is one of those cases where the less you know of Oppenheimer’s life, the more the film’s unfolding of the narrative will grab you.
Thus is the odd crossroads that Nolan as both writer and director is attempting to balance. The events he is depicting as of upmost importance, amongst the most tragically significant in the history of human development that we all still live in the aftermath of. But by grounding the story on Oppie, and those in his immediate orbit, it allows for the human drama to meet the unimaginable weight of the moment. As it tumbles towards the inevitable, and we see the building of Los Alamos, the eventual detonation of the Trinity bomb, and the bombing of Japan in the name of ending World War II, we are deep under the skin for Oppenheimer. His immense guilt, his sense of shame and concern, is written across Murphy’s taut expression.
Murphy and Downey are far from the only exceptional performances in the film. Josh Hartnett puts in his own career best performance as Ernest Lawrence, a partner of Oppenheimer who turns his theories into practical results, and challenges his friend to keep his left-leaning politics to himself if he wants to have a hand in stopping the Nazi war machine. Emily Blunt tears through her scenes as Robert’s oft-suffering wife, who turns to alcoholism in the wake of having an unavailable, unfaithful partner. Matt Damon gives grounded warmth to Leslie Groves, Oppenheimer’s military liaison and often comic foil. There are a scattered few other surprising cameos throughout, including a previous Nolan collaborator making a one-scene appearance in the most scathingly critical depiction of an actual American president ever committed to film.
L to R: Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. But for all the star power is best implemented by the man at the helm. This is unquestionably Nolan’s finest work to date by a healthy margin, combining his love for meticulously plotted playful filmmaking to a much more ambitious subject matter than he has ever tackled before. What’s more surprising is just how much humor and humanity is able to inject into it as well; especially the scenes between Oppenheimer and Groves are intentionally and effectively funny, lending credence to the camaraderie of their unlikely relationship, but also releasing the valve slightly. There are moments of horror alongside moments of triumph, often in the same breath; Oppenheimer is an exhaustive exploration of every angle of the atomic age as we think of it. It is both amazing and terrifying to imagine we are capable of this.
By taking seriously the precise imagination that led us there, Nolan and Murphy’s depiction of not just this moment but the totality of that weight creates an inescapable guilt, pain and a longing for retribution that is impossible to achieve. It lingers in the cracks of one remarkable person’s psyche, but also creates space for our own reflection and anxiety, a sense of the world teetering on the edge, and all of us are hopeless to stop it. Even those that are at the very front lines.
